Nykdtheth
hen I was growing up my parents provided many learning experiences for me and my four siblings. One of my favorite things that we did was to go on one-day adventures. It seemed like whenever the weather was good and my father had a day off from work, my mother would make a delicious picnic lunch, and we would all pile in our car and go. We lived in Price, Utah, and there were lots of places to explore close to our home. We traversed many dirt roads, as if our Chrysler was an all-terrain vehicle, and we found many treasures along the way. I have a lot of fond memories of these adventures. They were very happy times. What I didn’t realize until I was older and had children of my own was that these little excursions must have been somewhat of a sacrifice for my parents. Instead of staying home and relaxing on my father’s day off, they made sure that we were doing something as a family. I know that these little trips in the car were not quiet, and after romping around in the outdoors, climbing and exploring, the fragrance in the car on our return home must have left something to be desired. Looking back on these great experiences, I am amazed at how patient my parents were with us. I realize now that they made these sacrifices because they loved us and wanted us to develop a greater love for them and for each other. I believe they understood that this bond of love would make it easier for us to listen to them and follow their advice because we felt close to them.1 As I came to understand the gospel plan, I realized that my parents’ loving actions and desires were a reflection of our Heavenly Father’s love for each of His children. The Church’s Handbook of Instructions states that “The family is ordained of God. It is the most important unit in time and in eternity.”2 It further states that “He established families to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare us for eternal life Today I would like to speak about family relationships, specifically the relationships that we have with our children, and how the Savior’s love, mercy and compassion can help us improve, and sometimes endure, those relationships. Our children can be the source of our greatest happiness, but they can also be the source of our greatest sorrow. It’s during these times that we—both parents and children—need to feel the love, mercy and compassion of the Savior. When children come into our families, we as parents hope that we will be able to love and care for them and provide all that they need, both physically and spiritually, to be happy throughout their lives. This is a responsibility we cannot take lightly. In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” we read, “Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.” So as parents we try to do our best and hope for an outcome that will be happy and joyful. But from personal experience, I know that as hard as we may try to teach and provide for our children in the right way, the outcome can be that of sorrow and pain. Sometimes it can even be baffling to try to figure out why some of our children thrive and others struggle even though they have been reared in the same home. We love our children. We are grateful when they are happy. But when one of them behaves in a way that causes heartache—heartache that words cannot adequately express—we sometimes find ourselves being left with feelings of despair. It’s during these trying times that we as parents earnestly seek for help, guidance and comfort, not only for our wayward children, but for ourselves. It was during one of these difficult times with one of our children that I remember reading the parable of the prodigal son. Through this parable, Christ teaches us how we as parents should respond to our wayward children. Two things stood out to me as I read the parable. First, I was touched by the way in which the father responds when he sees his wayward son returning home. In Luke 15:20 it gives us this description: “But when he son was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” It is a perfect example of forgiveness, mercy and love. The second thing that stood out to me was that the parable does not mention the prodigal son’s mother. That caused me to ponder how she would have been portrayed, and what her feelings might have been throughout the entire episode. I imagine that it would have been a difficult time for her. I imagine she would have been very sorrowful beyond description when her youngest son, whom she loved and cared for from his birth, asked his father for his “portion of goods” (Luke 15:12). President David O. McKay noted that “the ‘younger son’ … was immature in his judgment. He was irking under the restraint, and he rather resented the father’s I’ll add mother’s careful, guiding eye. He evidently longed for so-called freedom, wanted, so to speak, to try his wings. … Here is a case of … deliberate choice. Here is, in a way rebellion against authority.”4 In other words, their son wanted to leave them and to reject everything about them. And he did. He gathered his “portion of goods” … “and took his journey into a far country” (Luke 15:12, 13). How long was he gone? Long enough to “waste his substance with riotous living” and long enough to live during “a mighty famine in the land” in which “he began to be in want” because of his lack of money (Luke 15:13, 14). Long enough, according to Robert L. Millet, to become an “indentured servant—a status above that of a slave, but one that bound him by contract to work as a general laborer a pig farmer for his employer for a specified time.5 What did his parents do during the time he was gone? The parable does not mention what they did; we are left only to our own imaginations and our own experiences to answer that question. I believe that they continued on with their lives, performing their daily tasks and service, but with great sadness at the loss of their son. I know in our own family, the father would have spent a lot of time comforting the mother, for as the saying goes, most mothers are only as happy as their most miserable child. The mother would have spent every day and night wondering and worrying about her lost child. She would be asking herself time and time again what more she could have done for him that would have made him want to stay with his family. She may have even had regrets about not being the mother she should have been. She would have constantly been worried about his well-being and about whether he was happy. She may have even had feelings of anger towards him because of the apparent disregard for his family. But the thought that may have worried her most of all—and which she would have tried to push from her mind—was the question of whether he was still alive. I picture her having the same concerns as Lehi’s wife, Sariah. Sariah truly mourned because of her sons when she thought they were lost. “For she had supposed that they had perished in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 5:1-2). And, maybe, like Sariah, the mother of the prodigal son would have complained to her husband, blaming him and wondering how he could have even given in to their son’s demands of having his portion given to him so he could leave. It is experiences like these that may make it difficult for us to have faith enough to believe the Savior’s admonition and the theme of this Women’s Conference, “Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end” (D&C 100:12). What can we do to increase our faith and happiness during these times when our relationships with our children may make it seem impossible for our hearts to rejoice? How can we feel comfort? After having their first child, my friend Kelly and her husband were for some reason at that time unable to have more children. Because of this, they decided that they would adopt a baby. They did all that was required by adoption agencies, but again, for some reason they were overlooked When their only child was nine years old, Kelly received a phone call from a friend who informed Kelly that she had been asked to find a home for a five-year-old boy. The boy and his five other siblings had been reared by their grandparents because their mother was unfit to care for them. The grandparents could no longer care for them. They had done the best they could, but their health was failing them and they couldn’t continue on. Out of desperation, the grandparents had come from Texas to Utah in hopes of finding families that would take their grandchildren. Homes were found for the five other children, and only the five-year-old boy remained. Kelly’s friend knew that Kelly and her husband had been trying to adopt, so she called Kelly in hopes that they would be able to take this boy into their home. Kelly, of course, asked for some time to think about this. Kelly’s friend told her that they only had until the next morning to decide. Kelly hung up the phone, and the next thing she knew, her friend had brought the little boy to her home so that Kelly could visit with him. Kelly told me that she and her husband didn’t have time to fast and pray about this decision, they only had time to “pray fast.” The little boy never left their home. That was 12 years ago. It has not been an easy road for any of them since then. Having been abandoned twice already, first by his mother and then by his grandparents, it has been difficult for this boy to believe that his adoptive parents could really love him. He felt that Kelly and her husband were forced into taking him into their home, making it difficult for him to get close to his new family for fear that they would also leave him.